


emotional noob

by jagzii



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkwardness, College, M/M, Party, Short One Shot, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 20:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17608775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jagzii/pseuds/jagzii
Summary: Lance hates parties, and happens to bump into someone completely unexpected.





	emotional noob

**Author's Note:**

> writing dialogue is soo hard and I have honestly little experience in writing it, so if the dialogue feels awkward I apologise.. feel free to let me know how you think I can improve down in the comments, I would really appreciate some feed back.

I knew I wanted to go home the moment I stepped through the door, actually scratch that, I knew I wanted to go home the moment I stepped out my own bloody door. Why, why, whyyy did I allow myself to be dragged out of my home, away from my wonderful bed and blankets and laptop and netflix..? Why did my friends think spending quality with oneself, everyday wasn’t normal? Didn’t normal people always complain about not have enough time for themselves, whats so wrong about me having me time, all the time.

Okay fine, even I’ll admit I may need to leave the house more, but I do, during the day. Night time outings are also fine, so long as they’re limited to nice dinners with family or my small clutch of friends, but parties…. Are just not my thing. Don’t get me wrong its not the dancing that gets me, I like dancing as much as the next person, in fact, its the only reason I ever who to clubs.. seriously if you ever see a tall, lanky dude sprinting back to the dance floor from some random corner of the room, its probably me. But parties, are never just about dancing are they? Parties are where people go to drink, to find potential flings, to socialise and judge. In my brain every party I’ve been to plays like a really blurry old video tape, one which leaves you more annoyed and embarrassed than nostalgic.

Needless to say, I really wish I hadn’t caved in and agreed to accompany Pidge and Hunk to this classmates frat party, what did Hunk say, ‘ It’ll be a good change of pace for you Lance, to go out and make questionable life decisions, you know, like every other college student out there!’.

Yeah, well I was most definitely doing all of this things right now.

As soon as I had walked into the building, which hd seemed to almost be radiating energy, I felt like I had been transported to the stereotypical party sequence played in any movie with college going protagonists. The narrow hallway was packed with way to many people, just when I had managed to push past the barrier of people into the living room I was surrounded by a sea of moving bodies, as people dancing ( gyrated) against one another, their hands ( ones which weren’t holding cups filled to the brim with cheap beer) roving over the bodies of the partners.

I spotted Hunk and Pidge on the opposite side of the room, but honestly had no idea how the hell I was going to make my way across, because shouting to get their attention was going to be a futile exercise given how loudly the music was playing, almost painfully so. Ugh guess I’ll just have to shove my way through this crowd, glares and curses be damed. Straightening my shoulders I was just about to plunge into the battle field, when I felt someone lightly tap my shoulder.

'Oh great', I thought, as I slowly turn around, some random stranger is now going to try and engage in inane conversation…. I stopped mid thought, because holy shit, not only was I now gazing into an extremely attractive set of violet eyes, but because these eyes happened to grace a very familiar and not exactly the most welcome face.

You see the person standing before me, looking fine as hell, just as he had two years ago was my ex- schoolmate Keith, and I use the term school mate in the most literal sense. We were not friends, not even close, in fact, we didn’t even get along. We argued constantly, anything we did together turned into a full fledged competition, and goddamn it that asshole was good at practically everything, it was infuriating. But what was worse was, he even though I always saw him as someone to beat, he didn’t even know of my existence. I still remember his blank expression when I confronted him about our ‘ rivalry’, lets just say, that is an embarrassing memory that has kept me up awake at night cursing my own stupidity on more than one occasion. So you can understand why having the same human, who has made me want to crawl into the fucking earth, albeit due to no real fault of his own, is not only what I was expecting, but not exactly something that I ever wanted, EVER.

kay now that the exposition is over lets put the inner monologue on hold for a sec

‘ Can I help you..?’ I say, in a voice which I hope conveys absolute disinterest, because I am.. you know, not interested in knowing why Keith not only tapped on my shoulder, but has since then done nothing my look at me, shuffle his feet and just look like the epitome of a nervous wreck, trying really hard not to look like a nervous wreck. It was honestly, so unexpected that I almost, and mean almost found it endearing, emphasis on almost.

‘ Umm, yeah, you see I…I’ he stutters,‘ Shit this isn’t how I wanted to start this conversation.. um just give me a second.’ He takes a deep breath and runs his hand through his long hair. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, he’d had a mullet back in school, seems like he not only kept it, but grew it out… and he still made the stupid 80s haircut look good somehow, what the hell.

‘ Okay, here goes’ he says snapping me out of my little trip down memory lane. ‘ I remembered you Lance, I hadn’t forgotten you that day in school, I knew who you were.’‘What?!’

‘ That day in school, when you stormed up to me demanding to know what my deal was, and why I seemed hell bent on beating you at everything ever… I told you I didn’t know who you were, I lied.’

‘ And I know it seems pretty weird, for me to not only bump into you at this party, but to then approach you and start talking to you about something that happened over two years ago but.. honestly I, I liked you back then. Like, I like liked you. You hit the nail on the head when you said that it seemed like I was beating you at everything, thats because I was trying to.’

‘ I knew it.. I told everyone and no-one fucking believed me! What the hell Keith, why would you even do that..?’ I almost yelled, barely managing to reign my voice and temper in. This ass, does he even know how much grief he caused me. Does he know how shitty he made me feel when suddenly KIETH who was never interested in swimming, in literature, in anything other than fencing started sweeping up all the awards, pushing me into second place, but never even looking at the prize, instead only gazing at me as we would climb onto stage.

‘ Im so sorry, it was the only way I knew how to get your attention’

‘ Huh..?

‘ I…’ he paused again but I was honestly not having any more of his stalling, at this point I just wanted a drink, so I couldn’t help but snap ‘ Spit it out Keith, Jesus.’

‘ Ilikedyou’

‘ Excuse me?’

‘ I liked you’ he repeated slowly, enunciating each word clearly.

‘ Like, as in romantically… you… you had a crush on me…?’

He nodded

‘ And the way you decided to get my attention wasn’t to befriend me, but to ..’ And at this point I think I lost it, because the sheer ridiculousness of everything, both the past and the present situation was too much, I began to laugh. And Keith- the naive emotional noob , who had just wanted to grab the attention of his stupid high school crush- looked so panicked at my reaction, that I couldn’t help but laugh harder, until tears sprung out of eyes and my stomach felt like I had just completed an intense ab workout.

‘ Are you..’ Keith began, to ask only to have me interrupt.

‘ I’m fine, its just that, out of all the reasons I thought you might give me, this wasn’t even one I considered. You could have just been honest ya know..? Would have saved me from a lot of sleepless nights.’

‘ I’m sorry..’ He mumbled, his eyes trained on his feat, avoiding all eye contact.

Jesus why did he have to look adorable while being apologetic for being an idiot…? Why did I have to find said idiot attractive in the first place? Why did my brain have to have a soft spot for his stupid mullet and violet eyes and rare smile and… god I’ll have to say it wont I? Nooo i really don’t want to, but… I opened my mouth to say the words that will now probably haunt me for the next couple of years of my life.

‘ Listen Keith, you weren’t the only one.’

He looks up ‘ What..?’

‘ You weren’t the only one who had a crush, I...  I had pretty bad crush on you to back in high school. Which is why my reaction to you saying you had no idea who I was, was much more violent and extreme than it would otherwise have been. Sure I loved winning and losing the prizes to someone who couldn't even be bothered to see me as competition was annoying but, honestly I was pissed because I was hurt.’

‘ Lance..’

‘ I’m not done yet. The reason I’m saying all of this, the reason I am even admitting to liking you, is because it doesn’t really matter anymore. Not only is this stuff in the past, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't even matter. But more than the absolute lack of any future consequences, what makes this irrelevant now is the fact that you came up to me, at this random party and tried to be honest, even though you could have just left it alone, I know I probably would have and I honestly don't know why you didn't.' 

‘ That may or may not have something to do with all the liquid courage I guzzled when I spotted you…’

Great! Sheepish Keith makes an appearance. God is not making this easy for me or my heart today.

‘ Be that as it may, I think we should bury the hatchet and just move one with our lives now, don’t you think?’

Keith seems to freeze. And then very slowly he opens his mouth and says ‘ No, thats not what I want.’

‘ You, don’t want to bury the hatchet…?’

‘ No!' he blurts out  'I mean yes… I mean yeah I want to let go of the past but not all of it. I don’t want us to just go our separate ways, I want.. No I would like for us to be friends. Not acquaintances, or distant classmates or even just competitors, Proper friends. Ones who can laugh together and hang out and chill...’ 

That, was not what I was expecting, at all. He wants to be friends, actual legit friends... with me..

This is insane. This is awesome. No nope definitely insane. I mean come on, when I walked into this party I was expecting certain things; to encounter a bunch drunk sweaty people, probably getting my toes stamped on a lot and eating and drinking a lot of questionable food and drink items. What I had not been expecting, was to run into my high school crush and self- proclaimed rival, who it turned out had a crush on me back then too, and who also happened to be super super bad when it came to feelings and how to deal with them.

But... that isn't necessarily a bad thing is it..?

And it's just that thought that has me sticking my hand out much to the mullethead's confusion.

' Lance, what..?’

‘ You said you wanted us to be friends right..?’

He nods

‘ Well… I propose a re-introduction. Since we clearly screwed up the whole thing the first time around’ I say shaking my outstretched hand for emphasis.

And as the implications of my words seem to sink in, a slow smile begins to creep up Keith’s face, until he’s practically beaming. And as he fits his hand into mine, and fits his palm into my own, I’m sure that theres a matching grin gracing my face as well.


End file.
